This archive report was first published on 15 December 2019.
December 15, 2019, marked another day in the life of Pastor Ng'ang'a, a prominent cleric in Kenya, as he found himself at the center of a land dispute in Kajiado County.
Susan Ngina Kanyali, an elderly woman from Ngong, accused Pastor Ng'ang'a of encroaching on her land and building a church structure on it.
According to reports, Susan had written a letter to the County Land Board in January 2016, demanding her rights after the National Land Commission declared the land rightfully hers.
The board subsequently wrote to Neno Evangelism Church, ordering them to refrain from any further development on the land, an order that Susan claims has never been adhered to by the church.
Susan pointed a finger at County Lands Boards boss, Joseph Murithi Mborothi, who she says is her neighbor, for being the mastermind behind the continuous pushback between the two parties and encroaching on her land as well.
She alleges that the area chief, Mohammed Dida, once threatened her, claiming she was too poor to win the battle over the property. However, Dida refuted the claims, saying the matter was already in court.
Ngina further claimed to have been allocated the land by the government in the 1970s and has owned the quarter-acre piece of land for over three decades until different parties started encroaching on her land in 2013.
After the church refused to move out of the land, she forwarded a petition to the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission.
She is now accusing the church of audaciously continuing to develop the land, despite the orders from the County Land Board. Ngina further told the paper that the drainage system coming from the church area is directed to her house, making her iron-sheet home susceptible to flooding and inconvenience.
